Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the radioprotective screens, and more particularly the screens that are used in medical environment or other, to protect an operator from emissions of ionising radiations, for example X-rays. It also relates to an equipment in the form of a sterile cover for covering such screens, with a view to using them in a sterile protected environment.
Description of the Related Art
Within the framework of some examinations or interventions, the patients are subjected to ionising radiations, in particular of the X-ray type, used for the purpose of control, diagnosis or treatment.
This is the case in particular for interventions such as catheterism, installation of pacemaker, vascular, neurological or urological examinations, CRM (Cardiac Rhythm Management), CRT (Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy) . . . .
It is then important to correctly protect the operator (technician, doctor, surgeon or other) from such radiations, on pain of exposing him/her to significant doses, cumulated over time, liable to generate various pathologies (necroses of the upper limbs, cerebral tumors, etc.).
Protection structures exist, which consist in clothes such as overalls, chasubles or aprons made of a radioprotective material, but that do not always cover the totality of the body and whose significant weight harms the comfort of the operator, limits his/her capacities of movement and generates a rapid fatigue.
Shields or screens also exist, which are consisted of panels or assemblies of panels made of a suitable radioprotective material, put directly on the ground or through a support base, for example a rolling frame.
For example, the document US20120049093 describes a screen structure, a vertical part of which is intended to come in position under a support table adapted for receiving a patient, and another vertical part of which, carried by the first one, is intended to come in position above said support table and the patient.
This second part is mounted vertically mobile relative to the first one, in particular to facilitate the positioning of the screen the nearest possible of the body of the patient lying on the table.
But such a structure is not adapted to allow an operator located on the protected side of the screen to accede, by his/her arms and hands, to the other side of this screen, for example to intervene on a part of the patient's body exposed to the radiations.
Other known radioprotective shields or screens, as described for example in the documents FR2915868, WO-2009/156660 or U.S. Pat. No. 3,308,297, consist in structures well adapted to protect an operator intervening on a patient exposed to radiations, through orifice(s) or opening(s) for the passage of his/her arms and hands.
But the current structures of this type do not always allow the operator to work in optimum conditions.
In particular, some interventions include intermediate phases or steps during which the operator does not need radioprotection, but needs a great freedom of movement, for example for the installation of implantable cardiac devices, pacemakers, defibrillators, etc.
The presence of the screen is then relatively embarrassing. The operator has to bypass it or the screen has to be temporarily moved apart, which is not easy to implement and poses problems of space, organisation and even of security within the intervention room.